Memeorandum

March 27, 2018

Gun Control Made Simple

Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens bloviates in the Times about gun control. Like many public speakers he warms up the audience with a joke:

John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

No, that is the headline, not the joke, Wait for it...

Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday.

Oh, please. Not since the last big march, or the one before that, or the one before that, or... no wait, that was the deplorable Tea Party rally.

Look, liberals live in cities. They have no trouble rousting the faithful for a quick bus ride and a bit of sloganeering. Later they watch themselves on the news and convince themselves that the country has spoken. Come election time they are shocked to learn about flyover country and the unreconstructed troglodytes lurking there. How has this escaped the learned Justice Stevens?

The headline is a spoiler but eventually he reveals his latest fantasy:

That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.

Does the Justice realize that "semiautomatic weapons" includes most handguns sold today? It's times like this that the aggressive ignorance of the gun controllers makes a sensible conversation difficult.

As to repealing the Second Amendment, please - that would require a runaway Constitutional convention (exciting!) or a 2/3 vote in each chamber of Congress and then ratification by 38 states. Has he looked at an electoral map?

Evidently not:

Overturning [District of Columbia v. Heller] via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.

That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform.

"Simple". Right, a Congress that won't expand background checks will vote to repeal the Second Amendment.

Back in Realityville, this is yet another reason for progressives to regret the nomination of the Hillary Clinton. Had she manged to eke out a 2016 win (YES, in the Electoral College - sort of like how the team with more first downs does not beat the team with more points) she could have picked the replacement to Justice Scalia. Five lockstep liberals would then have "interpreted" the reasonable regulation caveats of Heller to cast the Second Amendment into oblivion.

Well, we dodged a bullet, as it were. As to Justice Stevens' goal here, this may simply be a cry for help from a deranged mind. More charitably, his hope may be to plant the crazy flag so far to the left that the formerly ludicrous - e.g., a renewed assault weapons ban - seems sane by comparison. He's trying to crack open the Overton Window a bit.

Comments

The Italian Stallion recovers from his Round 12 loss, JimNorCal, to retake the lead. However, if Caruana and Karjakin end up tied for first at the end of Round 14 (which would happen if Caruana ties, Karjakin wins and Mamedyarov doesn't win), I believe Karjakin gets the nod based on 1 1/2 to 1/2 head to head against Caruana. I haven't figured out what would happen if Caruana, Karjakin and Mamedyarov end up in a three way tie.

Dopey kids won’t do anything about guns in the future.
They will be too busy trying to make us buy electric cars.
Hogg didn’t get in his college choices because his SAT scores were too low.
However Berkeley or Oberlin might take him.

I am catching up at the end of a day enjoyably preparing Barchester Towers for teaching. Great book.

It is! I think I've shared before that I was reading Dr. Thorne while in labor with kid #3. Sadly, I've never picked it up again. Time to get going.

If you like the political aspects of "who will be the new bishop, dean, warden, etc.?" I also highly recommend The Masters by C.P. Snow, which chronicles the election of a Cambridge college head. A more serious novel, but fascinating. I love the Strangers and Brothers sequence.

"Make no mistake Duda. They carry 100 round mags so after you they can deal with 99 like minded."

I've lived in this country for years and for years 2nd amendment advocates told me that they needed their guns to stand against potential tyrannical governments intent on taking away their freedom. Fine.Good deal.But happened when a foreign adversary attacked us and undermined our said freedom??????2nd amenders hid in their own piss and prayed for the red threat to pass.

As I recall from my year of Recruiting Duty in the Seattle area looking for potential Navy pilots, Evergreen University, site of many recent Prog protests, did not issue grades---they issued individual writeups for the student from an evaluator of each course. That said, i think Hogg's rejection due to his GPA was probably racist (White Male) because any of his CNN bonafides should have guaranteed him a full ride scholarship at any of those bullshit schools due to his politics, if reported properly. I claim racism and am outraged that Iggy, Frau, TK, CentralCal, DrJ, jimnorcal, ExDem, Ext, Kevlar, and Ed, and anybody else I missed don't have the privelege of coughing up dough to pay for this kid's tuition.

So how does it play out? 9th will say it is illegal and the census comes and goes before SCOTUS chimes in?

Posted by: Old Lurker

I'm more interested in if Trump can start constructing the Wall on Monday or if the 9th Circuit Court etc have the power to hold up the building of the Wall. Can Trump continue building while his legal Team constucts a legally sufficient reason why he can legally build it, or do the Court's expected pronouncements stimy building until Trump provides the Court a legally sufficient reason to build it?

A 4.2 out of 5.0 GPA is the equivalent of a 3.36/4.0 GPA. Hogg is not a good student....a balance of A's and C's get a 3.0 average....so he had a few more A's than C's. A 1270 SAT is below the CAL BERKELEY 75th percentile mean SAT of 1340.

I admit I’m not up to speed on the endless permutations of progtard’s monomania, racism, but can someone more enlightened than I catch me up on the counterfactuals of the considerable numbers of mixed race couples I’ve seen in NoLa? TIA.

According to Sarah, the Wall is under construction NOW. She got a couple of people asking her about the military building it, but she said when she had more information she would let them know. Then a guy who I believe works for the Weekly Standard asked if the President was aware that he had to get Congressional approval to move money, which I believe is wrong if DoD declares it a national security risk (which Trump has done several times both in speeches and on Twitter) and the opioid crisis also enters into this as well as a security risk.

I believe they have already gotten approval to waive environmental stuff and so that won't be an issue.

Then some jerk in the back row asked how Mexico would pay for the wall and how the base (quoting the loathsome Ann Coulter) would consider it a promise broken if Mexico didn't pay, and again, Sarah said when they had the information they would tell the press.

Almost the entire rest of the press consisted of various questions about Stormy Daniels, his legal team, why he hasn't tweeted today, etc. Sarah cut it short and left adn I don't blame her one bit.

The 6 point grading system is new to me and I have been in education for 35 years.
Each school gives a copy of their grading to the prospective colleges.
He needed higher test scores for such competitive schools.
Perhaps his recent behavior will pave the way for him somewhere.
He and his big mouth would be lost at a big state university,
Also what courses did he take?
Clay works and art classes can boost a grade point but unless art is the major be discounted.

Re Trump and Stormy. As is the case with everything else these days, allegations of erotic dalliance activities have been dumbed down. We've regressed from the Keeler/Profumo sex scandal with Cold War operations implications to what Trump may or may not have been covering his buns with when Steph Clifford did or did not snap a magazine across said buns! Pathetic!

I am very pleased to welcome the opioid memorial to the President's Park in April. I encourage all to visit and remember those who we have lost to this deadly epidemic. We will keep fighting until we defeat the opioid crisis!

The White House
‏Verified account @WhiteHouse

The White House is partnering with @Interior and @NatlParkService to bring the @NSCsafety's “Prescribed to Death” opioid memorial to the Ellipse near the White House from April 11 to April 18.

Completely OT but a sidebar to our resident Eldrick hater, CH: the WSJ reviews a new, just-published biography of him that is quite a good read.

I read it munching on my po’boy and overhearing a sarcastic comment by the big black dude shucking oysters at the bar where I sat after a Hispanic restaurant supply purveyor dropped by: “There are 27 ways to kill a Mexican and I missed my one.” I kept my head into my newspaper...

Sitting in the Lufthansa Lounge at JFK waiting for our flight to Brussels.

Mrs. JiB's father will be 92 on the 30th. So we are going to celebrate and spend Easter. Day trips to Yper, Ardennes, Dunkirk and Luxembourgh. Its the WW1 + WW2 history trip for Frederick. Already done Normandy and the landings. I might make it to Rome if I get an appointment with a friend to help save our school.

BTW, at 92 he swims laps 3 times a week and rides a stationary bike 3 times a week. I get tired watching him:)

More on the sex cult raids. The cult is NXVIM and includes Richard Branson, the actress Linda Evans, the Bronfman daughters (Seagram's liquors), some guy who used to be head of Exxon (and maybe this might explain Tillerson's departure) and other big shots.